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Environmental Science and Engineering UNIT-1 Introduction To Environmental Studies and Natural Resources
Environmental Science and Engineering UNIT-1 Introduction To Environmental Studies and Natural Resources
com
UNIT-1
Definition
Environment is derived from the French word Environ which means to encircle
or surround.
Environment is sum total of water, air, and land, inter-relationships among
themselves and also with the human beings, other living organisms and property.
The above definition given in Environment Act, 1986 clearly indicates that environment
includes all the physical and biological surroundings and their interactions.
Scope
There are some major issues like global warming, depletion of ozone layer,
dwindling forests and energy resources, loss of global biodiversity etc., that are going to
affect the mankind as a whole and for that we have to think globally.
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o Public participation is possible only when the public is aware about the
ecological and environmental issues.
o A drive by the government to ban the littering of polythene cannot be
successful until the public understands the environmental implications of
the same.
o The public has to be educated about the fact that if we are degrading our
environment we are actually harming ourselves.
Forest resources
Uses of Forests
Commercial uses:
Ecological uses:
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Man depends heavily on forests for food, medicine, shelter, wood and
fuel.
With growing civilization the demands for raw material like timber, pulp,
minerals, fuel wood etc. shot up resulting in large scale logging, mining,
road-building and clearing of forests.
Our forests contribute substantially to the national economy.
The international timber trade alone is worth over US $ 40 billion per
year.
The devasting effects of deforestation in India include soil, water and wind
erosion, estimated to cost over 16,400 crores every year.
Deforestation
Causes of Deforestation:
Consequences of deforestation:
b) Effect on biodiversity
1. Loss of medicinal plants.
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c) Effect on resources
1. Loss of land resource
2. Loss of soil fertility
3. Soil erosion
4. Drastic changes in biogeochemical cycles
d) Effect on economy
1. Increase in medicinal values
2. Demand of industrial products and others
e) Effect on food
1. Loss of fruit production
2. Loss of root based foods
Case Studies
The rainfall pattern was found to fluctuate with wooded land area in the
hills. When the Nilgiri mountains had luxuriant forest cover annual
rainfall used to be much higher.
Timber Extraction
Logging for valuable timber such as teak and mahogany not only involves
a few large trees per hectare but about a dozen more trees since they are
strongly interlocked with each other by vines etc.
Also road construction for making approach to the trees causes further
damage to the forests.
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o Big dams and river valley projects have multi-purpose uses and have been
referred to as "Temples of modern India.
o India has more than 1550 large dams, the maximum being in the state of
Maharashtra (more than 600) followed by Gujarat (more than 250) and
Madhya Pradesh (130).
o The highest one is Tehri dam, on river Bhagirathi in Utttaranchal and the
largest in terms of capacity is Bhakra dam on river Sutlej.
The greatest social cost of big dam is the widespread displacement of local
people.
It is estimated that the number of people affected directly or indirectly by
all big irrigation projects in India over the past 50 years can be as high as
20 millions.
The Hirakud dam, one of the largest dams executed in fifties, has
displaced more than 20,000 people residing in 250 villages.
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Effects on forests
Thousands of hectares of forests have been cleared for executing river valley
projects which breaks the natural ecological balance of the region. Floods, landslides
become more prevalent in such areas.
For example
The Narmada sagar project alone has submerged 3.5 lakh hectares of best forest
comprising of rich teak and bamboo forests.
The Tehri dam submerged 1000 hectares of forest affecting about 430 species of
plants according to the survey carried out by the botanical survey of India.
Water Resources
Uses of Water
Due to its unique properties, water is of multiple uses for all living
organisms.
Water is absolutely essential for life.
Most of the life processes take place in water contained in the body.
Uptake of nutrients, their distribution in the body, regulation of
temperature, and removal of wastes are all mediated through water.
Human beings depend on water for almost every developmental activity.
Water is used for drinking, irrigation, and transportation, washing and
waste disposal for industries and used as a coolant for thermal power
plants.
Water shaped the earth's surface and regulates our climate.
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Preventive measures:
Clear knowledge in control of drought and desertification can be very useful for
dealing with the problem.
Carefully selected mixed cropping helps to optimize production and minimize the
risks of crop failures.
Social forestry and Wasteland development can prove quite effective to fight the
problem, but it should be based on proper understanding of ecological
requirement and natural process.
Indispensability of water and its unequal distribution has often led to inter-state or
international disputes. Issues related to sharing of river water have been largely affecting
our farmers and also shaking our governments. Many countries are engaged in bitter
rivalries over this precious resource.
For instance,
Argentina and Brazil, dispute each other's claims to the La Plata river,
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India and Pakistan fight over the rights to water from the Indus,
Mexico and USA have come in conflict over the Colorado river,
India and Bangladesh are fighting for Bhrahmaputra river, and
Iran and Iraq contest for the water from Shatt-Al- Arab River.
Within India, water conflicts are still being continues between the states. For Eg.,
Sharing of Krishna water between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh,
Sharing of Siruvani water between Tamilnadu and Kerala, and others.
Sharing of Cauvery between Karnataka and Tamilnadu
On June 2,1990, the Cauvery Water dispute Tribunal was set up which through an
interim award directed Karnataka to ensure that 205 TMCF of water was made
available in Tamil Nadu's Mettur dam every year, till a settlement was reached.
In 1991-1992 due to good monsoon, there was no dispute. In 1995, the situation
turned into a crisis due to delayed rains and an expert Committee was set up to
look into the matter which found that there was a complex cropping pattern in
Cauvery basin.
Samba paddy in winter, Kuravai paddy in summer and some cash crops
demanded intensive water; thus aggravating the water crisis.
Proper selection of crop varieties, optimum use of water, better rationing are
suggested as some measures to solve the problem
Benefits:
River valley projects with big dams play a key role in the development process
due to their multiple uses.
These dams aim at providing employment for tribal people and raising the
standard and quality of life.
Dams can help in checking floods and generate electricity and reduce water and
power shortage, provide irrigation water to lower areas, provide drinking water in
remote areas and promote navigation, fishery etc.
Problems:
The impacts of big dams can be upstream as well as downstream levels.
The upstream problems include the following:
Displacement of tribal people
Loss of forests, flora and fauna
Changes in fisheries
Saltation and sedimentation of reservoirs
Loss of non-forest land
Stagnation and waterlogging near reservoir
Breeding vectors and spread of vector borne diseases
Reservoir induces seismicity causing earthquakes
Microclimatic changes
Growth of aquatic weeds
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Mineral Resources
Uses of minerals
Mineral is an element or inorganic compound that occurs naturally. The main uses
of minerals are as follows:
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Major mines which are known for causing severe problems are given below:
Impacts of mining: Mining is done to extract minerals from deep deposits in soil.
Environmental damages caused by mining activities are as follows:
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Case studies
Soap stones, building stone, and dolomite mines spread over 15,000
hectares in Udaipur have caused many adverse impacts on environment.
About 150 tones of explosives are used per month in blasting.
The Maton mines have badly polluted the Ahar river.
The hills around the mines are suffering from acute soil erosion.
The waste water flows towards a big tank of " Bag Dara".
Due to scarcity of water people are compelled to use this effluent for
irrigation purpose.
The animals like tiger, lion, deer, and birds have disappeared from the
mining area.
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The Aravalli range is spread over about 692 Km in the North-west India
covering Gujrat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi.
The hill is rich in mineral resources.
Mining operations within and around the Sariska Tiger reserve has left
many areas permanently infertile and barren.
The precious wild life is under serious threat.
Food resources
During the last 50 years world grain production has increased almost three times.
The per capita production is increased by about 50%.
At the same time population growth increased at such a rate in less developed
countries.
Every 40 million people die of undernourishment and malnutrition.
This means that every year our food problem is killing as many people as were
killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.
This statistics emphasize the need to increase our food production, and also to
control population growth.
It is estimated that 300 millions are still undernourished.
Overgrazing:
Overgrazing can limit livestock production. Over grazing occurs when too many
animals graze for too long and exceed the carrying capacity of a grass land area.
Impact of overgrazing:
Land degradation: Overgrazing removes the grass cover. The humus content of
the soil is decreased and it leads to poor, dry, compacted soil.
Soil erosion: The soil roots are very good binders of soil. When the grasses are
removed, the soil becomes loose and susceptible to the action of wind and water.
Loss of useful species: Due to overgrazing the nutritious species like cenchrus,
panicum etc. are replaced by thorny plants like Parthenium, Xanthium etc. These
species do not have a good capacity of binding the soil particles and, therefore,
the soil becomes more prone to soil erosion.
Agriculture:
Traditional Agriculture and its impacts:
Usually involves a small plot
Simple tools
Naturally available water
Organic fertilizer and a mix of crops
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Main impacts:
Deforestation
Soil erosion
Depletion of nutrients
Main impacts:
I. Impacts related to high yielding verities (HYV): The uses of HYVs encourage
monoculture i.e. the same genotype is grown over vast areas. Incase of an attack
by some pathogen, there is total devastation of the crop by the disease due to
exactly uniform conditions, which help in rapid spread of the disease.
II. Fertilizer related problems:
a. Micronutrient imbalance: Chemical fertilizers have nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium (N,P,K) which are essential macronutrients.
Excessive use of fertilizers cause micronutrient imbalance. For example,
excessive fertilizer use in Punjab and Haryana has caused deficiency of
the micronutrient Zinc in the soils, which is affecting productivity of the
soil.
b. Nitrate Pollution: Nitrogenous fertilizers applied in the fields often leach
deep into the soil and ultimately contaminate the ground water. The
nitrates get concentrated in the water and when their concentration
exceeds 25 mg/L, they become the cause of a serious health hazard called
"Blue Baby Syndrome" or methaemoglobinemia. This disease affects the
infants to the maximum extent causing even death.
c. Eutrophication: A large proportion of nitrogen and phosphorus used in
crop fields is washed off along with runoff water and reach the water
bodies causing over nourishment of the lakes, a process known as
Eutrophication. (Eu=more, tropic=nutrition). Due to Eutrophication the
lakes get invaded by algal blooms. These algal species grow very fast by
rapidly using up the nutrients. The algal species quickly complete their life
cycle and die thereby adding a lot of dead matter. The fishes are also
killed and there is lot of dead matter that starts getting decomposed.
Oxygen is consumed in the process of decomposition and very soon the
water gets depleted of dissolved oxygen. This further affects aquatic fauna
and ultimately anaerobic conditions are created where only pathogenic
anaerobic bacteria can survive. Thus, due to excessive use of fertilizers in
the agricultural fields the lake ecosystem gets degraded.
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Remedy:
(i) The most common method for getting rid of salts is to flush them out by
applying more good quality water to such soils.
(ii) Another method is laying underground network of perforated drainage pipes
for flushing out the salts slowly.
Case studies
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Energy resources
Life on earth depends upon a large number of things and services provided by
nature, which are knows as energy resources.
I. Solar energy:
a. Sun releases enormous quantity of energy in the form of heat and light.
b. The solar energy received by the near earth space is approximately1.4
kJ/s/m2 known as solar constant.
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VIII. Biogas:
a. Biogas is a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and hydrogen
sulphide.
b. Biogas is produced by anaerobic degradation of animal wastes in the
presence of water.
c. Anaerobic degradation means break down of organic matter by bacteria in
the absence of oxygen.
d. Biogas has many advantages. It is clean, non-polluting and cheap.
e. There is direct supply of gas from the plant and there is no storage
problem
IX. Bio fuels:
a. Biomass can be fermented to alcohols like ethanol and methanol which
can be used as fuels.
b. Gasohol is common fuel in Brazil and Zimbabwe for running cars and
buses.
c. Methanol is very useful since it burns at a lower temperature than gasoline
or diesel.
d. Due to its high calorific value, hydrogen can serve as an excellent fuel.
e. Moreover it is non-polluting and can be easily produced.
f. Presently H2 is used in the form of liquid hydrogen as a fuel in spaceships.
I. Coal:
a. Coal was formed 255-250 million years ago in the hot, damp regions of
the earth during the carboniferous age.
b. The ancient plants along the banks of rivers were buried after death into
the soil and due to the heat and pressures gradually got converted into peat
and coal over million years of time.
c. When coal burnt it produces carbon dioxide, which is a green house gas
responsible for causing enhanced global warming.
II. Petroleum:
a. It is the life line of global economy.
b. Petroleum is a cleaner fuel as compared to coal as it burns completely and
leaves no residue.
c. It is also easy to transport and use.
d. Crude petroleum is a complex mixture of alkane hydrocarbons.
e. Hence it has to be refined by the process of fractional distillation, during
which we get large variety of products namely, petroleum gas, kerosene,
petrol, diesel, fuel oil, lubricating oil, paraffin wax etc.
f. The petroleum gas is easily converted to liquid form under pressure as
LPG.
III. Natural gas:
a. It is mainly composed of methane with small amounts of propane and
ethane.
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92U
235
+0n1 36Kr
92
+ 56Ba
141
+ 3 0n1 + energy
(ii) Nuclear fusion: Here two isotopes of a light element are forced
together at extremely high temperatures (1 billion C) until they fuse to form a
heavier nucleus releasing enormous amount of energy in the process.
2
1H +1H
2
2 1
3He +0n +energy
Nuclear energy has tremendous potential but any leakage from the reactor may
cause devastating nuclear pollution. Disposal of the nuclear waste is also a big problem.
Land Resources
Land as a resource
We depend upon land for our food, fibre, and fuel wood.
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About 200-1000 years are needed for the formation of one inch or 2.5
cm soil, depending upon the climate and the soil type.
But, when rate of erosion is faster than rate of renewal, then the soil
becomes a non-renewable resource
Land degradation
With increasing population growth the demands for land for producing
food, fibre and fuel wood is also increasing.
Hence there is more and more pressure on limited land resources which are
getting degraded due to over-exploitation.
Soil erosion, water-logging, salinization and contamination of the soil with
industrial wastes like fly-ash, press-mud or heavy metals all cause
degradation of land.
Soil erosion
Soil erosion is basically of two types based upon the cause of erosion:
a) Normal erosion or geological erosion: caused by the gradual removal of
top soil by natural processes which bring equilibrium between physical,
biological and hydrological activities and maintain a natural balance
between erosion and renewal.
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b) Accelerate erosion: This is mainly caused by man made activities and the
rate of erosion is much faster than the rate of formation of soil.
Overgrazing, deforestation and mining are some important activities
causing accelerated erosion
There are two types of agents which cause soil erosion. They are climatic agents
and biotic agents.
Water affects soil erosion in the form of rain. Water induced soil erosion is of
following types:
a) Sheet erosion: When there is uniform removal of a thin layer of soil from a large
surface area, it is called sheet erosion.
b) Rill erosion: when there is rainfall and rapidly running water produces finger-
shaped grooves or rills over the area, it is called rill erosion.
c) Gully erosion: When the rainfall is very heavy, deeper cavities or gullies are
formed, which may be U or V shaped.
Slip erosion: This occurs due to heavy rainfall on slopes of hills and mountains.
d) Stream bank erosion: During the rainy season, when fast running streams take a
turn in some other direction, they cut the soil and make caves in the bank
Wind erosion is responsible for the following three types of soil movements:
a) Saltation: This occurs under the influence of direct pressure of stormy wind and
the soil particles of 1-1.5 mm diameter move up in vertical direction.
b) Suspension: Here fine soil particles (less than 1mm diameter) which are
suspended on the air are kicked up and taken away to distant places.
c) Surface creep: Here the large particles (5-10 mm diameter) creep over the soil
surface along with wind.
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Desertification
Causes of Desertification: The major man made activities responsible for desertification
are as follows.
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I. Deforestation:
a. Deforestation means destruction of forests.
b. The total forests area of the world in 1900 was estimated to be 7,000
million hectares which was reduced to 2890 million ha in 1975 fell down
to just 2,300 million ha by 2000.
c. Deforestation rate is relatively less in temperature countries, but it is very
alarming in tropical countries.
II. Overgrazing:
a. Overgrazing can limit livestock production.
b. Over grazing occurs when too many animals graze for too long and exceed
the carrying capacity of a grass land area.
c. Overgrazing removes the grass cover.
d. The humus content of the soil is decreased and it leads to poor, dry,
compacted soil.
e. The soil roots are very good binders of soil.
f. When the grasses are removed, the soil becomes loose and susceptible to
the action of wind and water.
g. The dry barren land reflects more of the suns heat, changing wind patterns
leading to further desertification.
III. Mining and quarrying:
a. Mining operation requires removal of vegetation along with underlying
soil mantle and overlying rock masses. This results in destruction of
landscape in the area.
Different natural resources like forests, water, soil, food, mineral and energy
resources play a vital role in the development of a nation. While conservation efforts are
underway at National as well as International level, the individual efforts for conservation
of natural resources can go a long way.
Conserve Water
Don't keep water taps running while brushing, shaving, washing or bathing.
Check for water leaks in pipes and toilets and repair them promptly. A small pin-
hole sized leak will lead to the wastage of 640 liters of water in a month.
Use drip irrigation and sprinkling irrigation to improve irrigation efficiency and
reduce evaporation.
Install a small system to capture rain water and collect normally wasted used
water from sinks, cloth-washers, bathtubs etc. which can be used for watering the
plants
Build rain water harvesting system in your house. Even the President of India is
doing this.
Conserve energy
Turn off lights, fans and other appliances when not in use.
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Obtain as much heat as possible from natural sources. Dry the clothes in sun
instead of drier if it is a sunny day.
Use solar cooker for cooking your food on sunny days which will be more
nutritious and will cut down on your LPG expenses.
Grow deciduous trees and climbers at proper places outside your home to cut off
intense heat of summers and get a cool breeze and shade. This will cut off your
electricity charges on coolers and air-conditioners.
Try riding bicycle or just walk down small distances instead of using your car or
scooter.
Protect the soil
While constructing your house, don't uproot the trees as far as possible. Plant the
disturbed areas with a fast growing native ground cover.
Make compost from your kitchen waste and use it for your kitchen-garden or
flower-pots.
Do not irrigate the plants using a strong flow of water, as it would wash off the
soil.
If you own agricultural fields, do not over-irrigate your fields without proper
drainage to prevent water logging and salinisation .
Use mixed cropping so that some specific soil nutrients do not get depleted.
Promote Sustainable Agriculture
Do not waste food. Take as much as you can eat
Reduce the use of pesticides.
Fertilize your crop primarily with organic fertilizers.
Eat local and seasonal vegetables. This saves lot of energy on transport, storage
and preservation.
Control pests by a combination of cultivation and biological control methods.
There is a big divide in the world as North and South, the more developed
countries (MDC'S) and less developed countries (LDC'S), the haves and the
have nots.
The MDC's have only 22% of world's population, but they use 88% of its
natural resources, 73% of its energy and command 85% of its income.
As the rich nations continue to grow, they will reach a limit.
If they have a growth rat of 10% every year, they will show 1024 times
increase in the next 70 years.
Will this much of growth be sustainable? The answer is 'No' because many
of our earth's resources are limited and even the renewable resources will
become unsustainable if their use exceeds their regeneration.
Thus, the solution to this problem is to have more equitable distribution of
resources and wealth.
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